Early mockups reveal Windows 8’s evolution

Attention to detail, and inspired by the Internet.

The early Start screen had a persistent clock and status icons. Wide tiles were wider, and narrow ones narrower.

Earlier this year, a presentation made by Jensen Harris, Director of Program Management for the Windows User Experience Team, gave a rare glimpse into how Windows 8 looked and worked before Microsoft went public with the operating system.

In the presentation, first noted by blogger Long Zheng, Harris talks about how Windows 8's user interface came to be. His central thesis is that familiar interfaces can be displaced by new interfaces that are built for the present rather than the past. The graphical Windows displaced the text-mode DOS; Windows 95's easy multitasking replaced Windows 3.1.

Enlarge/ The early lock screen is very similar to the final product, though the small icons are now below the date.

What modern change justifies Windows 8's abandonment of familiarity? New form factors, new modes of interaction, and the pervasive use of the Internet. Though they didn't ship until 1995, the basics of the Windows taskbar and Start menu interface were designed in 1992, in an era before widespread Internet usage when Office and document editing were king.

In the 20 years since, the Internet has become a part of everyday life. Documents are still important but they're no longer central; computers, tablets, and smartphones have replaced phone calls, phone books, road maps, CD collections, photo albums, books, and more. Mouse and keyboard haven't been replaced but they've been joined by touch. Harris argues that these changes motivate a new interface.

Enlarge/ A much busier-looking charms bar with more charms and more ornamentation.

Harris showed some early versions of the Windows 8 interface from 2010 in his presentation. Even then, the core elements were all in place; the Start screen packed with Live Tiles, the snapped side-by-side multitasking, and the charms that swiped in from the edge. This first iteration was more complex than the final product, as the early Start screen included a persistent clock, date, Wi-Fi signal meter, and battery meter. Those things are now only visible when the charms are on-screen—and those charms originally numbered eight instead of the five we have today.

The presentation also gives some insight into some of broader design themes, in particular, "doing more with less;" stripping back unnecessary or irrelevant features of the operating system. Harris cites as an example the warning Windows gives when your battery is low. In Windows 7, this dialog warns you that the system will hibernate and that you need to plug your computer in or "find an alternate source of power," as if you could invent cold fusion or something to keep the system running. In Windows 8, the message simply tells you to plug your computer in again.

What's striking about the presentation is that they reveal that genuine thought that has gone into the Windows 8 design, from ensuring certain pieces of the Start screen line up when swiping through to guaranteeing that the kerning of the "Start" text on the Start screen is always right. Harris acknowledges that many of these things might go unnoticed but argues that "God can see" the details.

This is eye-opening, because so much of Windows 8 lacks this same attention to detail. Windows 8 is really two user interfaces crudely grafted together. And parts of Windows 8 have had this attention lavished on them which makes the contrast with the other, older parts of the operating system even more stark.

Enlarge/ The early keyboard had more shading than the final model and lacked some of the conveniences like arrow keys.

110 Reader Comments

Oof. Everything I learn about Windows 8 feeds my fears that Microsoft eventually plans on phasing out the "old" interface. I heard the analogy of the DOS-to-Desktop transition, and I really, really hope this isn't the same thing. Because, as neat as the new interface is, it lacks lots of important functionality.

I hope Microsoft continues work with the Desktop, and improves its interaction with Tiles. If they don't dedicate themselves to that for the long-term, that probably means Desktop is doomed... in which case I hope Tiles somehow improves to be a suitable replacement.

Everything I learn about Windows 8 feeds my fears that Microsoft eventually plans on phasing out the "old" interface. I heard the analogy of the DOS-to-Desktop transition, and I really, really hope this isn't the same thing.

And yet, with PowerShell, the Windows command line is more capable than it ever was in the days of DOS. Windows 7 added* the ability to open a terminal window in a specific directory by simply using the context menu. Your fears are seriously misplaced.

*[edit:] Ok, MS offered an addon powertoy to enable that for XP, but Win7 baked that into the OS for everyone.

One simple thing I think they could change to make the start screen to desktop transition less jarring: Don't have the metro start screen flip away and show the desktop wallpaper while a desktop app is loading. Its a huge reminder that the two worlds are just glued together.

Instead have the Word, Excel or whatever loading screen pop up with a solid colour background that matches the start screen. At least on a psychological level it would feel more like the desktop app is trying to run inside the metro world.

... if you insist on using those techniques you learned back in the last millennium with software that was designed differently, you will be frustrated. But I believe that an open-minded [...] user who actually takes a few minutes to learn how the new UI works will be more productive very quickly. The secret is breaking old habits and developing new ones.

Windows 8 Enterprise was made available to me at work today. I upgraded my 7 machine, and within 10 minutes I was sold.

I was hesitant about Windows 8 ever since I first learned of the start screen, but after using it today, all those worries are gone.

That pretty much echoes my experience. For a while I could nitpick about things here or there, but after using it for a good year at this point I just think that Windows 8 is strictly superior to Windows 7. It's an improvement in almost every way. In many ways those improvements are small, sometimes basically unnoticeable, but they're there. I won't be able to go back now.

Jensen Harris' Office 2007 posts are also totally worth reading. They describe design decisions they made for the ribbon. Really interesting stuff if you're into UI design. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jensenh/

I don't know how much influence Jensen had on the Windows 8 GUI, I suspect an awful lot, given that he's been blog-AWOL for the last few years.

Something I noticed following the Office posts was that he (they, the team?) will ignore people's opinions if he/they think they're right, almost block-headedly (dogmatically? religiously?) so.

Which is great when you're right. And pretty ordinary when you're wrong. Office Logo button and Touch Is For Everyone, I'm looking at you.

There are definitely things in the Windows 8 UI that are nice improvements. E.g. I like the idea of Live Tiles (even though many of the examples shown are things I would not want on my computer). And there are things in the desktop that are not as usable as they should be. Double-clicking to activate an icon for example. It's too easy to unintentionally drag an icon. Especially with touch.

But there are also things that are poorly thought out. Discoverability is terrible, such a blatant design error it's hard to comprehend the thinking behind it. If Windows 8 is supposed to be a transitional step to get people used to Metro, they should have made discoverability a priority. Once people were used to the idea of charms, for example, it would be easier to hide the pull-down link for them (or have an auto-hide option like the taskbar). But when you switch to something new, making it easy for people to find things has to be top priority.

The problem from my point of view is that Microsoft apparently patterned Windows 8 not after the parts of the internet we love to use, but instead after the irritatingly blinking and animating advertising banners which distract us from the good things – and to me the most stupendous thing about this is that they actually seem to believe that that's a brilliant idea!

Not that this will cure your love for old tech and legacy desktop but after using Samsung tablet with Win8 Pro onboard I feel the same. Win7 is dead to me now. I tried it on desktop too and found navigation fast and simple. I use search when I need to get to remote pieces of the system, feel no problems with that whatsoever. I can make my Win8 start in desktop mode if I want to but I found status updates in the start screen tiles pretty useful and fun so didn't even bother. New task manager is super cool. And the system boots in 10 seconds on my Samsung 830 SSD. So far no bugs or issues, looks like a smooth sail after a few weeks of use. Bye Win7, you were pretty good to me but since Win8 is easy to navigate around even on a desktop, I'm leaving you old buddy. Super low upgrade price helps too of course. Upgrading my third home machine already. 39 dollars for what I'm getting is a steal IMHO.

Not that this will cure your love for old tech and legacy desktop but after using Samsung tablet with Win8 Pro onboard I feel the same. Win7 is dead to me now. I tried it on desktop too and found navigation fast and simple. I use search when I need to get to remote pieces of the system, feel no problems with that whatsoever. I can make my Win8 start in desktop mode if I want to but I found status updates in the start screen tiles pretty useful and fun so didn't even bother. New task manager is super cool. And the system boots in 10 seconds on my Samsung 830 SSD. So far no bugs or issues, looks like a smooth sail after a few weeks of use. Bye Win7, you were pretty good to me but since Win8 is easy to navigate around even on a desktop, I'm leaving you old buddy. Super low upgrade price helps too of course. Upgrading my third home machine already. 39 dollars for what I'm getting is a steal IMHO.

Interestingly enough, pretty much all of your 10 posts since you registered in October are cheerleading for Windows 8 and/or surface. So I guess I'm pretty much not surprised that you're sticking to script.

By the way, how do I get a gig as a forum shill? I could use the extra money and I think I'd be pretty good at slinging the poo.

The problem from my point of view is that Microsoft apparently patterned Windows 8 not after the parts of the internet we love to use, but instead after the irritatingly blinking and animating advertising banners which distract us from the good things – and to me the most stupendous thing about this is that they actually seem to believe that that's a brilliant idea!

You're talking about the Start screen I assume. Do you live in the Start screen? I hope not. The idea of live tiles is that you can get at a glance the state of multiple things you might want to monitor. It works very well for that purpose, and it happens without you having to dive in and load an app or data individually.

Not that this will cure your love for old tech and legacy desktop but after using Samsung tablet with Win8 Pro onboard I feel the same. Win7 is dead to me now. I tried it on desktop too and found navigation fast and simple. I use search when I need to get to remote pieces of the system, feel no problems with that whatsoever. I can make my Win8 start in desktop mode if I want to but I found status updates in the start screen tiles pretty useful and fun so didn't even bother. New task manager is super cool. And the system boots in 10 seconds on my Samsung 830 SSD. So far no bugs or issues, looks like a smooth sail after a few weeks of use. Bye Win7, you were pretty good to me but since Win8 is easy to navigate around even on a desktop, I'm leaving you old buddy. Super low upgrade price helps too of course. Upgrading my third home machine already. 39 dollars for what I'm getting is a steal IMHO.

Interestingly enough, pretty much all of your 10 posts since you registered in October are cheerleading for Windows 8 and/or surface. So I guess I'm pretty much not surprised that you're sticking to script.

By the way, how do I get a gig as a forum shill? I could use the extra money and I think I'd be pretty good at slinging the poo.

What kind of shit was he slinging? He just happened to like Windows 8. In fact, the real people slinging crap are ones accusing others of being forum shill. Let the comments stand as they are and people will judge them on the basis of their content (Ars even has an upvote button for that now).

And if you're really going to use user age as an indicator of how valid one's opinion is, then maybe you should learn from this old geezer from 2002 and not accuse others of being trolls for what was a perfectly reasonable and noncombative post.

God damn, my first experience posting on this website has been terrible...this community is quite...unique.

They're not usually this bad, and I say that as one of the handful of conservative posters here. But, yeah, I think the first guy spotted a witch and a bunch of people grabbed pitchforks and torches before they had really thought it through.

The increased importance of the Internet means that at the application layer, that your Web browser is your most important application, and at lower levels of the operating system, it's much more important to manage stable and secure Internet access for your browser and for other networked applications. That says absolutely nothing about what the user interface should be like, save that it should be easy to get to your Web browser, and you should be apprised of any issues with your network connection.

Microsoft's been trying to force the Internet into the desktop since it introduced the option of the "active desktop" in Windows 95, allowing you to use a Web page, with scripting, as wallpaper. I never saw anyone actually use that. Overall, what I'm hearing as the design intent of Windows 8 is the same crap I've been hearing from Microsoft about desktops since Windows 95 -- that they want to leverage the Internet, and introduce social networking features into every application where they can find an excuse to do it.

Microsoft has been pushing the social networking concept since long before Facebook or Twitter existed. And somehow, Microsoft can never get it right. My guess is that most people actually resist the push to totally merge their social and professional lives, but that seems to be the main thrust of Microsoft's efforts.

Part of the argument for the structure of the Windows 8 GUI is that they want to unify the user experiences of desktop and mobile users. But the way this is done is to set up two different, incompatible GUIs that conflict with each other. And in many cases, there are two separate versions of an application, one for the Modern interface, one for the Desktop. This is not unifying the user experience. It's confusing and frustrating -- at least until you can install an application to suppress the Modern interface. It makes some intuitive sense for a tablet and a workstation to have different user interfaces. It makes no sense for a workstation to have two different user interfaces at the same time.

What an interesting glimpse into the UX group's design evolution. It would be great to get a full-on case study, since any of us who do IxD/UX would be interested to know how a company as slow and risk-averse as Microsoft arrives at such massive leaps of UI faith.

I'm particularly interested in understanding decisions related to gesture-evoked hidden functions like the left-hand app drawer and the default candidates for charms.

I'm not sold on the odd disconnect between Metro (Modern, whatever) and the old-school desktop, but as a tourist in Windows 8 (not an actual owner of it), I suppose much of that would be alleviated by heavy or at least routine usage. Not sure. What I do know as a designer is that the touch targets for the non-Metro portions of the OS are less than optimal. One is likely to revert strictly to mouse usage for essential targets like close/max/min buttons or other closely packed UI elements. Again, I'd need to spend more time with it...and to test drive it with my Dad, the king of missing touch (and even generous mouse cursor) targets.

I also wonder about the nimbleness of the new OS. Will it be subject to relatively rapid release improvements along the lines of Android or iOS? Do they have a design process in place to account for feedback and growth that results in less monolithic upgrades than the old service-pack model?

God damn, my first experience posting on this website has been terrible...this community is quite...unique.

Ok, I apologize for my insinuation, but we've had our fair share of astroturfers and shills here. (One poster found an almost word-for-word "testimonial" posted to various forums around the net under different names, that matched up with the one posted at this site.) I think what triggered some of the responses were 1) very first post, 2) an essentially content-free endorsement without any explanation of why you like it, and 3) word choices that sound like a canned testimonial.

God damn, my first experience posting on this website has been terrible...this community is quite...unique.

Ok, I apologize for my insinuation, but we've had our fair share of astroturfers and shills here. (One poster found an almost word-for-word "testimonial" posted to various forums around the net under different names, that matched up with the one posted at this site.) I think what triggered some of the responses were 1) very first post, 2) an essentially content-free endorsement without any explanation of why you like it, and 3) word choices that sound like a canned testimonial.

It's fine if a given product works for you, but at least explain why.

I was going to add some more detail, but I felt like THAT may have garnered the response my original post got. Ah well, there's no changing the past.

God damn, my first experience posting on this website has been terrible...this community is quite...unique.

Ok, I apologize for my insinuation, but we've had our fair share of astroturfers and shills here. (One poster found an almost word-for-word "testimonial" posted to various forums around the net under different names, that matched up with the one posted at this site.) I think what triggered some of the responses were 1) very first post, 2) an essentially content-free endorsement without any explanation of why you like it, and 3) word choices that sound like a canned testimonial.

It's fine if a given product works for you, but at least explain why.

It's not necessary for him to explain the why of anything just to avoid your malice. That's the most backhanded apology I've read in, oh, about 45 minutes.

I was going to add some more detail, but I felt like THAT may have garnered the response my original post got.

Ars readers, while often cantankerous (myself included at times), thrive on information. So despite the rough start, now is as good a time as any to elucidate...

If you say so.

I use(d) the start menu every day at work. The quick access to specific folders and applications seemed invaluable. Being able to open my downloads folder in one click, or quickly launch outlook when I accidentally closed it instead of minimizing it. Sure, I could have pinned 15 or 20 things to my taskbar, but that just took up way too much room. Rarely did it make up for itself by having all the applications open at the same time.

Additionally, I was worried that transitioning between the start screen and the desktop would be a hassle; I'd have to hit that "Desktop" button every time.

And finally, I just thought I'd never use the tiles, and they would just be wasted space, and I'd just have to see them while clicking through to the desktop.

Then I actually used Windows 8

The improved instant search in Windows 8 satiates all my worries about the start menu. No longer does it take Windows 15-20 seconds to realize when I type "Downloads", I want the Downloads folder. I can type 'dow' and hit enter, and I'm there. Much faster than moving the mouse to two specific points and clicking. Keeping my hands on the keyboard saves a small, but noticeable amount of time. My only current issue with the instant search is for Control Panel items; I have to hit 'tab, down arrow' to switch between Applications and System searches

Transitioning between the start screen and the Desktop is pretty much seamless. NOT ONLY does the start screen only consume one monitor, and not necessarily, the primary monitor, (so my second monitor can still display my desktop or desktop application), but switching to and from it is SO easy, I'm actually using the start screen, something I thought I'd never do. You can alt-tab, you can hit the roll to the left-side hot corner and task-switch back to the desktop with one click. You can click on the Desktop tile, if you really want to.

Third, the tiles. When I first saw the tiles for things like Email, Messenger, I thought they would only integrate with Microsoft services. After using Win8, I've realized that no, it's like my smartphone. I can add a multitude of accounts. I have my exchange and personal gmail account in the mail app, google, linkedin, and facebook in the people app, my google and exchange calendars, and facebook in the messages app (I was so sure that'd only be for Messenger (soon to be Skype).The email app is one of my favorites. No more do I need to keep opening and closing a gmail tab, or pulling up outlook. I get a really nice notification, hit the start key (or click the notification), and there's my email. Both accounts in one place with no bogged down email client. The windows 8 one, while no-frills, is speedy. Same with the calendar app.The messaging app really surprised me today. I set it up with my Facebook account, and near the end of the day, I got a message from someone. The seamless integration of Facebook messaging with the desktop, again in a low footprint, fast, no-frills form, was really attractive. I was also able to quickly refer back to recent facebook notifications from the people app, without having to leave the start screen and open the browser.

Granted, I don't see myself using much more of the start screen than I am. I think I've hit my limit. I looked at the store, and besides some silly things like Minesweeper, Pinball, and Google Maps (No bing for me!), I don't really want any of it. There's a lot of replication I could get, like Chrome and a calculator, but I still like having most applications on the desktop, where I can easily use them with other apps, rather than using the smartphone/tablet OS style of one app at a time. There are some exceptions, like the email app, for quick checking. I'd much rather use the gmail webapp (Especially with the new compose window) if I'm doing something serious, and Outlook is still used (especially for mail that doesn't show up in my Inbox, since I don't have/want notifications), since the mail app doesn't show unread counts for folders unless you load them ahead of time.

My only other gripe with Windows 8 is logging off/shutting down. Currently, to shut down, you have to (this is from memory, No Windows 8 at home yet...)-Go to hot corner-Move mouse to gems on side of screen-Click Power-Click Shut down-Confirm shut down

3 more steps than Windows 7. Logging off is even more obscure since you have to go to the start screen first. Granted, you can use Alt-F4 to get the classic NT shutdown box, but that's kinda clunky.

Anyway, that's my stream of conscious.tl;dr: The Start Screen does not get in the way and is much more useful than I assumed before really trying it.

Sorry for my initial post but you have to understand, there's no credibility anymore in terms of what people post. Companies have been shown to astroturf popular sites to inject popular opinions and Microsoft has been caught doing so at least in a few areas. So for a product which has polarized so many people,a new poster who says said product is great without much else is cause for at least some cynicism.

Yes , Windows 8 is disruptive. We all get it.. it's suppose to be. We now have for the Desktop the level of immersion an OS delivered on a gaming console has been achieving for 8 years now. Internalizing DirectX to the detriment of all previous Win32 applications was going to happen one day, might as well all be in one shot and deprecate everything else including the web. Otherwise people won't take you seriously.

I can't believe they had the clock at the start screen and then removed it from the final build. If I was on a tablet and wanted to check the time, I certainly wouldn't want to switch to desktop mode to read the tiny clock in the taskbar to do so.

Also, why they have a Sign out option but no shutdown/sleep option when clicking the user icon in the start screen is beyond me. Most responses I get when I complain about this is to just use the hardware power button. Sure, nice idea, however Windows 8 has a bug where the ACPI events of the power button stop working after resuming from sleep from a power button event (I've seen the bug on 2 desktop systems, but my laptop appears unaffected). So I just use the setting option from the charm bar, which is less than ideal.

I have been using Windows 8 for several months now, and it still feels like an awkward kludge. My initial impression is that Microsoft really wants their portable devices to succeed, and the only way that they are going to accomplish that against the entrenched competition is to force the interface on everyone they can where they still have a virtual monopoly: the desktop.

But it doesn't work. They are two, mostly, mutually exclusive environments. If they had to throw it in there, why not a quick boot environment? The interface is confusingly inconsistent, is my setting in the Metro interface or the desktop context? When I am working on my large desktop monitor, I want to have many other apps open, from IM to foobar2k. Metro works well on a 10" touch screen. For the most part on a desktop, I want to work. That means I don't want a gigantic simplistic full screen touch interface. I want a CLI and the full breadth of commands of a traditional desktop app like Excel.

I do like the new file copy dialog and the new task manager. I hide the Metro interface with Start8. But I can't help but think that Apple has done this much better. Unified architecture, but different interfaces to suit different contexts.